The total expense ratio (TER) of an ETF is a measure that sums up the management fee of the ETF plus all other expenses paid by the ETF. Therefore, an analysis of the Total Expense Ratios is more meaningful than a quick comparison of management fees. Even though the TER is a competitive measure, it has some flaws since there are costs which are not covered within the TER. In addition, there are costs for buying, selling, and holding an ETF. All the missing costs are displayed in the total costs of ownership (TCO). Since some of these costs depend

When exchange-traded funds (ETFs) were introduced in Europe in the year 2000 it was hard to predict that these products would write an unbroken success story for more than 20 years. This becomes especially true when one is taking into account that the last two decades saw so many so-called “black swan events” in the financial markets—like no other period before—and each of these events had the power to derail the ETF industry from their growth track. But ETF assets increased during rough market periods—times during which common sense would dictate that active managers would have an advantage over passive